PARC Award
Each year, DSV offers the PARC Award to the best dissertation business project between DSV and the Logistics and Operations Management section of Cardiff Business School.
The PARC Award is offered to graduates who have demonstrated strategic and innovative thinking throughout their business projects.
2023 winner
Rashid Abuzarli won the 2023 award for his work on the Blockchain as an enabler of circular supply chains in the food and agriculture industry. This project investigates the potential of blockchain technology in promoting circularity within agrifood supply chains. Addressed key research questions and explored why circular agri-food supply chains require BT, the benefits it can offer, and the obstacles faced along with potential solutions. Utilized a diverse set of research methods, including narrative literature review, multiple case studies, a survey, and interviews to analyse the technology's potential and identify application gaps for future research. The recommendations provided offered practical insights looking to harness the benefits of blockchain technology for circularity.
Previous winners
2022 winner
Felisa Zainuddin won the 2022 award for her work on the Discrete Event Simulation of Second Life Batteries Manufacturing for Repurpose. Her research investigated the process of repurposing end of life batteries using discrete event simulation to understand the dynamic of the process and improved the performance of the whole manufacturing process. Optimisations were made on the simulation model using an iterative process and managed to increase the throughput from 30 packs/day to 180 packs/day.
2021 winner
Xitian Yuan was the recipient of the PARC award in 2021.
Her ideas and research had a focus on the use of possible blockchain applications within circular supply chains in the fashion industry.
‘All the students have worked extremely hard over the past year and have produced some high-quality reports with excellent recommendations for PARC; Xitian’s work has provided some valuable research and outcomes with a superb report’ (Peter Tuthill, LMS and Remaker Manager at DSV)
2020
Thomas Harvey has won the 2020 award. Thomas’s prize-winning ideas focused on identifying opportunities for the development of local airports to improve global supply chains and connectivity.
Sophie Hazell, LMS Solutions design engineer and PARC coordinator, who mentored the students during their projects with Cardiff University explains, “Despite the COVID-19 constraints, the students have shown great ingenuity and resilience in their projects, providing fantastic outcomes and recommendations for PARC.”
2019
Akshita Rangnekar won the 2019 award. Akshita’s prize-winning ideas focused on identifying opportunities related to the introduction of 5G with a particular focus on the field of installations services.
Sophie Hazell of DSV-Panalpina, who mentored the students during the industry projects with Cardiff University explains, “Akshita did a fantastic job at understanding our current business models, and making suggestions on how we could take it further”.
2018
Sophie Hazell, for her work on the processes for air and ocean quotations, identifying current quotation processes and offering recommendations and improvements.
Sophie observed current processes, gathered information and conducted interviews. Improvements were identified via the use of value stream mapping, identifying areas where time could be saved and innovation or automation could be introduced. Sophie was further tasked with analyzing over 2000 quotes from Air and Ocean to identify trends in ad-hoc customers and establish which customers could be identified to increase customer relation and maximize business.
2017
Giulia Zorzi, for her work on global macroeconomic trends that are likely to influence the way third party logistics business is conducted.
2016
Maria-Roza Toufekoula, for her work on returns forecasting for closed loop circular supply chains. This area is a main research focus of the Centre, and we ran a knowledge transfer partnership (Qioptic) and a fundamental research project (Re-Run) in this area.
2015
James Chatten, for his work on disruptive innovations in supply chains and their implications for the way third-party logistics business is conducted.
2014
Lucie Troop, for proposing a new approach to fostering innovation in the logistics industry.
2013
Kaicheng Xie, for his ten-year perspective on the future of logistics and how the industry will evolve.